Infiltration on decline, says Manmohan Singh
From Meerza Iqbal Baig

NEW DELHI—Observing that Indo-Pak ties are improving, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said that he and President Musharraf would ensure that the ongoing peace process between the two countries is irreversible.
Our relations with Pakistan are improving. Both President Musharraf and I have committed our countries to do all that is in our power to make the peace process irreversible,” he said on Friday in his address to the Congress functionaries in Kerala.
Ahead of his meeting with President Musharraf, scheduled for Sept 14 on the margins of UNGA session in New York, the Prime Minister said “infiltration” into Held Kashmir was already on the decline and expressed the hope that India and Pakistan would work to realize a clear vision of prosperity.
Dr Singh said he was elated that the Hurriyat leaders had agreed for talks, which would help strengthen the peace process adding, it was essential to ensure that the deprived people reaped the fruits of harmony and development.
The Hurriyat Conference has announced a five-member delegation led by its Chairman Mirwaiz Umer Farroq for talks with the Indian Prime Minister on September 5.
The team comprises former Hurriyat Chairmen Abdul Gani Bhatt and Maulavi Maulana Abbas Ansari, Bilal Gani Lone and Fazal Haq quereshi, Mirwaiz told the newsmen in Held Srinagar.
The delegation will leave for New Delhi on September 4, he said. All the four are the members of the Executive Committee of the Hurriyat and had visited Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan in June this year.
The Hurriyat’s meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would be its first with the UPA-led government since it came to power in May last year.
Earlier the faction of Hurriyat Conference led by its Chairman Mirwaiz Umer Farooq decided yesterday to send a delegation for talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to find a “lasting and durable” solution to the Kashmir dispute.
“It was unanimously decided to accept the invitation for talks by the Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh, with a view to proceed with seriousness, imagination and courage to find an acceptable and durable solution to issue of Jammu and Kashmir in the larger interests of the people of the region,” Spokesman Abdul Majid Banday had stated.
Talks of the Hurriyat leaders with the Prime Minister will take place ahead of Manmohan Singh’s meeting with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, scheduled on September 14 in New York.
NDA crisis: CPI (M) today said there was a “grave” political crisis in the NDA which has affected all its partners with some of them thinking of parting ways.
“There is not only a crisis within the BJP, but a grave crisis is facing the NDA. Some of the partners are thinking of coming out. In this kind of a situation, the spread of the party is essential to fill the vacuum,” CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury told reporters on the second day of the three-day meeting of the Central Committee.
He said a resolution on the prevailing political situation in the country, adopted by the Polit Bureau yesterday, was being discussed by the Central Committee. Yechury said the NDA was not able to play the role of Opposition effectively, which had led the Left parties, supporting the UPA coalition from outside, taking the initiative in checking the government from pursuing any “anti- people” policy.
Expressing “total support” to the proposed nationwide strike called jointly by several major trade unions on September 29, he said a mass campaign and struggle would be launched soon in all states on the issues of food and jobs that would culminate in the strike. To questions on the Common Minimum Programme, he said it was no longer a CMP, “but a national CMP which had become the basis of the UPA government’s policy directions”.